The Thessalonian Story Part 1

I want to talk to you about that in a minute. Here are two of the outstanding believers of the first century, and they are having a falling out. There’s no other way to put it, and you say, well, that’s sad. Well, to me, the marvel is not the sadness of the situation. The marvel to me is that those two men got along so well for so long. Now, those are, I don’t use the word Prima donnas. They were leaders. Planting churches in Galatians. And they had been 6 years together, and two years more in Antioch. That’s a period of eight years. That’s the world’s record. Nobody’s ever equaled it since then. Two great men of extreme personality and power were able to get along that long; you try to find that happening anytime in the 21st century, and you will not see it. Thank God they worked as well as long as they did, and I’m going to make a point here that I think is very important, sometimes don’t forget this.

The two men finally decided to break up, and Barnabas would go with John Mark to Cyprus, and Paul would take someone with him back to Galatia. It is interesting to me that on their first trip, Barnabas was the leader when they were in Cyprus, and Paul was the leader in Galatia. Therefore, Barnabas is returning to Cyprus, and Paul is returning to the Galatian churches. And if you ever have a problem as to who’s in charge, perhaps the solution lies here. Who was in charge in the beginning? Barnabas goes back to Cyprus. He has priority there. Paul goes to Galatia. He has priority there. Paul takes the letter. I’d like to say a good word for Barnabas here. We will hear from him again. The two men will even work together again in the same church, Corinth.

And I’d like to say this to you: remember the story we told about what happened in Cyprus? Barnabas wanted to preach the gospel to the Hebrew churches there, but they were so closed-minded that no Gentiles had ever been in the churches in Cyprus. Barnabas goes back to Cyprus with the hope and the belief that he can crack open those little cultural enclaves and get Gentiles into the churches that are all over the land of Cyprus. Paul has a different view. Forget the past. There are those wonderful new churches up there in Galatia, never heard of the law of Moses or all the traditions of the elders. Let’s go up there. Paul picks Silas to go with him; it turns out to be a good choice. The two men make up their bedrolls and get some food, and whatever else they do, they have a bag full of Hebrew scrolls, probably the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Isaiah would be pretty typical. And they’re very fortunate men to have that much of the Scripture. That’s about as much as anybody could ever dream or hope to have in the first century. And it is a large, big bag. And they carry it with them. They make a long, long, hard trip over land. Seemingly, it would be better to go by boat, but you know what happened the last time they went by boat…they almost got themselves killed. Paul has decided to become a land lover.

And so, they cross out of Syria into the land of Cilicia and past what is called the Syrian Artarus Notch. And they begin making their way back up into the land of Galatia. But I’d like for you to know what’s beating in the heart of Paul right now. Now, just before he left to make this trip, he sent a letter to those four churches.

Dear brother, dear sister, can you appreciate this? Paul started those churches, and he has not seen those churches in over two years. And just recently, someone came through and went to all four of those churches, saying, “Paul’s a liar. Paul’s not from Jerusalem. Paul persecuted. Paul has given you a spurious gospel. You should be circumcised.” There were people who got circumcised who were Gentiles. All of this has happened since Paul left there, and he literally does not know if there are any churches left. He has sent a blistering letter to those four churches. We’ve been looking at it. It’s called the letter to the Galatians, and it starts off saying, Oh, you dumb, foolish Galatians, who bewitched you to take some other gospel? It is a really harsh document that goes on to speak of the Christian’s liberty.

Will you also remember that when Paul went up there, and Barnabas, they didn’t have any church buildings, they didn’t have seminaries, they didn’t have any Bibles, they didn’t have any song books, they were dealing with people who mostly were slaves and the children of slaves. They were dealing with people who were 98% illiterate. They could not read, could not write. Paul had only spent a few months in each of the four churches. He had been gone for two years. The four churches had been ravaged by a highly gifted man. Paul has sent a blistering letter. Do those churches still exist? And if so, are they standing with Drachma Blastinius? Or are they standing with Paul of Tarsus?

Okay, the first church he comes to will be probably the tiny little church in Derbe; the last church he started will be the first church that he comes back to. There he comes. Little town. Little bitty town. He’s on the outskirts of the city. His heart’s beating. He keeps thinking about that mean letter he wrote. And as he walks through the gates of the city, he hears someone call his name. And this person comes up and grabs him and hugs him. And Paul looks at him. Now, you’re not going to find this in the Bible, so we’re imagining a little bit here. It’s a young man named Timothy. Do you remember him? His mother was Jewish. His father was Greek. He’s about years old now, maybe. And Paul trembles and says, Timothy, is there still a church here in Derbe? And Timothy looks at him really strangely and says, Well, of course there is. We got your letter. We loved it. We thought it was wonderful. We cleared up our problem.

Paul, still shaking all over, asks, “Well, what about Iconium, Lystra, and Antioch?” And Timothy smiles really big and says, ‘Well, you’ve come to the right man, because I have just come back from visiting all the churches. They are sound, they are well, and they are growing. The light of the Lord is with them, they’re enthusiastic, and they’re excited.’ ‘Well, what about that letter I wrote?’ ‘Well, they thought that was just really wonderful. They didn’t like Blastinius anyway. He didn’t have a sense of humor.’

Alright, so we now have Paul back in the land of Galatia, and he’s visiting the four churches. And he has with him Silas. He stays with the church in Derbe for a few days. It looks wonderful. He has some meetings with some of the leaders. He spends a lot of time with the Lord’s people. They go over a lot of things that were said. But most of all, Paul is excited to pull out that scroll and say, There it is. And you see that name right down there? By the way, this letter came from Jerusalem, that place that Blastinius said I had never been. And you see that name right down at the very bottom of that paper? That is no less than the signature of Simon Peter. He can’t write, so the X is what that stands for, Peter. And right over here is James and John, and over here is Didymus the Twin, and over here is Matthew, and this and that one and the other, and here’s even the half-brother of Jesus who signed it, and this letter says you are free; you do not have to obey laws to please God. The only thing they’ve asked you to do is not drink blood, which I also ask you not to do, and they’re excited; the people are thrilled to death. The problem is over. They don’t have to be circumcised. Then Paul and Barnabas bid that church goodbye.

Go to lconium. Find out the same situation there. Spend some time there. Lystra, also in excellent shape. And then finally, to the large city of Antioch Pisidia. Not Antioch, Syria. Antioch, Pisidia. They spend a good length of time there. But there’s one thing that has changed, and that is it’s not Paul and Silas anymore, because before he left Lystra, Paul went to the home of Eunice and said, You’ve got a son here, and Lois, you’ve got a grandson here, he has been preaching the gospel here in Derbe and in Lystra. And he’s also been down in Iconium, encouraging the church and the church in Pisidia Antioch. We have received encouraging words about him everywhere. He’s just a kid. He shouldn’t be doing this, but he is. I’d like to take him with me.

And there are reasons for it. I want Silas to witness wherever he is that he’s a Hebrew from the church in Jerusalem. We’re not going to have that problem anymore. I’d like for a Gentile to go with me to tell about the Gentile churches that have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they, the mother and the grandmother, agree to let him go.

Now, why does Paul take this young man with him? I think it’s because he’s shy one scroll carrier. And that’s literally the term that John Mark was called by. And as excited as Timothy is, what he gets is he gets one big, heavy satchel to carry around some big scrolls. And that leaves Paul and Silas carrying food and maybe a tent, clothing. And please remember, because this will become very important, Paul also has a sack full of tools with him. And those tools are the tools of his trade. He is a tent maker by trade.